Elgaboth, the Kidnapping: Chapter 4

Alexander had never ridden so hard in his life. There had never been such a need. His daughters, the ones he had protected all their short lives, the twins he had sworn to love and protect on his wedding day and the daughter who, ever since her big blue eyes had met his, had held his heart in the palm of her hand.

He and his wife had been alone together in the garden of his summer home when the first messenger arrived. The next had appeared while the first was still speaking. They both reported a loss of communication with outposts and Alexander realized with a growing sickness that they were the two closest to Elgaboth. There was only to gather as many men as he could spare without compromising the security of the remainder of his family and then to ride. They had come to the first outpost late in the evening and found it burned to the ground with several soldiers dead around it. They had rested the horses for an hour and covered the bodies then rode on through the night.

Orion rode beside Alexander. They had been friends since childhood and had ridden together often. Orion’s dark face mirrored the crown prince’s scowl. He had no blood relatives at the school, had no close relatives at all , but his wife’s sister and brother were there and having no family of his own they were doubly important to him.

As the light of day began to creep across the wooded path they traveled the mist seemed to cling to trees around them. For Alexander and Orion their personal fears were not the only thing tormenting them. The political consequences of an attack on Elgaboth were likely to be war.

Suddenly two figures appeared on the road waving frantically. It took about a minute until recognition dawned and Alexander pulled his horse up short, dismounted and gathered Judy into his arms. Beside her, pale and stone faced was John.

Judy sobbed out disjointed sentences into her father’s shoulder. Orion called a halt and the men began taking wat rest they could while Alexander and Orion questioned the two escapees.

“Are you alright?”

She nodded quickly, “But they took everyone else and Lucy and Cassie were taken and who knows what he is doing to them and Kurt and Anna were behind the wall.”

Orion cut off the flow of words. “Kurt? What happened to him?”

John stepped forward for the first time, “Kurt was with us when we escaped but he was injured and couldn’t get over the wall. Anna wouldn’t leave him.” John’s voice betrayed his shame.

Orion sighed heavily.

“Anna?” Alexander looked at his daughter again. “Your maid?”

She nodded. “Cassie and Lucy were taken first. We locked our door and they hadn’t been able to break it down yet when John and Kurt came to get us out.”

“So Cassie was taken?”

Judy nodded again.

“Did you see Elwin and Lianna?”

Judy shook her head.

Alexander nodded then looked straight at his daughter. “It will be alright.”

“It can’t be. He took everyone…”

“It will be alright.” They looked at each other for a few moments. When they had finished Alexander picked up his daughter and placed her on his horse.

“Your mother is west from here.” He motioned to a lieutenant. “Take your company and see my daughter safely home. Then follow me to Elgaboth.”

He returned a little later and focused on John. “Now I need you to tell me exactly what happened.”

John told him all about the attack on the school, and the escape, sparing no detail he remembered.

“How did you find us?” put in Orion after he had finished.

“I knew there was an outpost down this road so we traveled in the woods along the side of the road and prayed that they hadn’t taken the outpost before Elgaboth.”

Orion nodded.

“Who is your father?” Asked Alexander.

 “Lord Falion of Purpleland.”

“I will arrange for an escort to his estate.”

“Your majesty, I want to ride with you.”

“Your father will be worried.”

“He will not be.”

“And your other family?”

“There is only a sister and she will not have heard.”

“How old are you?”

“Sixteen.”

Alexander looked at Orion. “When I was sixteen…”

“When you were sixteen the world might have been destroyed and you wouldn’t have noticed but you can’t judge everyone by that.”

“Sir, I had to leave friends behind at Elgaboth.”

“Alright,” Alexander looked at John again. “You can ride in the back.”

John bowed. “Thank you sir.”

After he had left Alexander turned to Orion. “I wish Kurt had gotten out with them.”

Orion nodded. “I’m more concerned about Cassie, you know what they are.”

Alexander’s face was hard as flint.

Orion realized his mistake and apologized. “Sander I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking about them.”

“We’ll get them back, all of them, or this country will be caught in a war we will never see the end of.”

Selena, Princess of Greyland

Angela of Greyland

Elgaboth, the Kidnapping: Chapter 3

Once she knew Judy and John were gone Anna grabbed Kurt’s arms and began to drag him farther into the woods. She could not see any likely hiding places but she kept on dragging her friend with the determination of one whose hope will stubbornly live on without reason. This time, however, Anna’s unreasoning hope did not betray her. As she stepped backward there came a sinking under her. Anna had discovered one of the many secrets of Elgaboth, though this one was an accident.

Long ago in Greyland there lived a weaver. He was not poor nor was he rich. He lived alone because his wife had died but his children and grandchildren visited often and he did not long for more company.

Now in Greyland there was a law that all redheads belonged to the king. Every time a redhead was born they were officially recorded and every year their parents received a visit on the child’s birthday. If the child’s hair was still red the child was taken.

This particular weaver had a granddaughter who was so condemned. As her first birthday approached everyone prayed and hoped that her hair would change, but day after day each strand of her beautiful rose-colored hair remained.

A month before her birthday her grandfather began the tunnel which Anna had just discovered and two days before the young girl’s birthday she and her grandfather were absorbed by the ruin that was Elgaboth. Just as forty years later the authoritarian country of Greyland absorbed two refugees of the burning fortress, Elgaboth.

Anna was able to pull Kurt’s inert form through the tunnel and cover it again with branches. Long after the soldiers had combed the woods, after they had bound the instructors, and after they had marched a caravan full of princes, lordlings, and the loved daughters of half the kings on the continent. After all these things Anna again found the courage to move. She did not, could not, know that the dark men she so feared had no intention of staying more than a moment longer then he had to in Elgaboth. She did not, could not, know that this was not an invasion but a hostage exchange. So as it was the idea of going back held to much terror for her to contemplate.

In History lectures they had learned a little of the history of Greyland. When the founders had come to the continent a thousand and some years ago it had been the only country that would not take one of that race for king and hence the demons were not bound there. The kings of that country set out to stamp out the demons and their spawn. With great and terrible magic their sorcerers banished color from the grass, the sky, even the dirt was grey in that land. Somehow this did manage to hold the demons at bay but not their children. Demonspawn wreaked havoc in the lad even centuries after color was banished. This led to the kings taking even more drastic actions. It began with the twins. Everyone knows that the children of demons are always twins down to the fifth or sixth generation and they decided that the only way to ensure peace in the land was to keep all twins under guard. This also solved the problem of Labor in to build the great cities they had planned. The people were too terrified of the demons and the violence of their descendants to protest when a small fraction of their children were taken to do the king’s work.

This policy seemed to work for a period of about fifty years. The capital city of Greyland was built, people enjoyed more peace than they had known before. But because of that peace mothers began to question why it was that they had to give up their children to a king who really had no business making slaves out of his own people. People stopped reporting their twins. They would hide one for a year and say they were nine months apart. Some would be sent off to relatives and passed as another’s child. It was one of these who changed Greyland forever.

Al Keder was a twin sent to live with his great aunt. She was old and senile but many said she had been a witch. Whether that is true or not under her lackluster car Al Keder grew up to be a man known for his cruelty. He was known to torture animals and no one in the town had ever heard him utter one word of kindness or even civility. When he was seventeen they drove him out of town with curses and blows. That seemed to put the final touch on his madness. He used the dark powers inside him to destroy the village. If you go there today there is only a scorch mark about a mile wide where the town once was. But he was not finished.

He traveled to the king’s summer home where the king’s favorite daughter was residing while she waited to be married to one of the Lords. There he smashed his way through the guards, took the princess and murdered her in cold blood.

He was finally caught, laughing to himself in a pool of her blood. The king was devastated. He had Al Kader slowly tortured to death and he himself struck the death blow. Then he did something extreme. Al Kadar had been a redhead, so had several well-known demonspawn and it was known that the demons of that area when they appeared to men had flames on their heads. The king ordered all redheads rounded up and put in work camps. Those who could not work were to be killed.

Now to issue a decree that applies only to future children is on thing but to actually round up, neighbors, friends, and relatives of your citizens is another. Most were too horrified by recent events to protest but a group of rebels fought the king’s troops.  They fought bravely but were badly defeated. The remnant of that army fled into the mountains with their families.

After the rebellion the king grew even more bitter. He issued more decrees banning anyone from owning anything of color. Over time people began regarding color itself as the enemy. Children with green or blue eyes were looked on as suspicious and women were forced to cover their hair and sometimes their faces to avoid showing color.

So when Anna, a twin, found herself lying on grey grass in a country suspicious of everything she was in no little danger. Fortunately she was wearing her white nightgown and nothing colorful. Neither was Kurt as his clothing of choice that night had been black.

There was nothing she felt she could do. Dragging Kurt farther would be extremely difficult and she had no idea where they would go. She decided to wait until he woke up and fell into an exhausted sleep with her hand on his arm so she would wake if he did. Many hours passed in that colorless land before either stirred.

Greenland Map

Greyland Map

Elgaboth, the Kidnapping: Chapter 2

Lucy sat perfectly still in the group of prisoners. She did not understand why everyone else seemed to suddenly be struggling with all their might to simply breathe; she felt nothing. She reached over to do what she could for Cassie who was on her knees gasping for breath. The guards were similarly struck dumb but they at least seemed to be able to breathe. She looked up. The man with the white-blond hair stood over them. His piercing mismatched eyes searched the ranks of assembled prisoners. They lighted on Lianna and Elwin, Judy's half-sisters. They were Identifiable not just by the fact that they were identical but by their hair. When Judy, who shared a name with her daughter, left Pinkland she had not left all its traditions behind, at least with her oldest daughters. Their pale blond hair had never been cut and now Lianna's single braid fell past her knees and Elwin's lose hair hit the ground.

The man grabbed Elwin by the hair and dragged her forward. "I want your sister, I want Judy. Now Judy will step forward or her sister will be the one who suffers." He began to hack away at Elwin's hair; the pale strands fell all around her. "Next it will be her fingers."

Lianna stood. She showed no sign of the paralysis that gripped everyone else. Her pale hair glinted in the moonlight, and her face, so like Elwin's but so different, was set.

"You should know better than to play with the daughters of the North." Lianna's voice and her eyes were filled with ice and darkness. It seemed to Lucy that black mist began to surround Judy's half-sister.

The man looked straight at her but she did not even flinch. His eyes widened then be began to smile.

"Does your mother know about this I wonder? If so she must never have told you."

He stepped back and signaled to two of his men. One of them slammed his spear butt towards Lianna's head. She Cried out in a voice not her own and fire surrounded her. The other soldier came at her from behind and a dark something flew from her had toward him. “ENOUGH,” The mans voice was much more powerful this time and he made an odd gesture with his hands toward Lianna. She cried out again and the fire around her went out as she fell unconscious towards the ground. One of the soldiers caught her as she fell. The black mist seemed to cling to Lianna and the men holding her.

Something exploded from the back of the crowd. The twin blueland princes and a few other boys had taken advantage of the man’s distraction and thrown themselves at the nearest guards. “HALT,” The powerful voice came again and almost all the boys froze and were easily over powered. All except Jon. He continued to wrestle unabated with the guard he had selected. The man looked startled  and flicked his head towards Jon but Jon was ready and he spun around and smashed both his fists into the lackey who was trying to knock him out. The silver bracers around his wrists seemed to change in the air and cover his hands like gloves. The man with the spear fell boneless to the ground. The man did not this time try to use magic. He nodded at several more soldiers and soon Jon was brought down by force of numbers.

“To the cages and make sure he had no opportunity of escaping.”

The man grabbed Elwin by the arm. “What I said still stands. Give me Judy or I take her fingers.”

Someone had to step forward thought Lucy. But Judy wasn’t here. Then a thought struck her. She and Judy were about the same size and if he truly didn’t know what Judy looked like he might take her white blond hair for Judy’s golden-blond braid and her pale blue eyes for Judy’s dark blue ones. She didn’t let herself think about anything but the knife over Elwin’s fingers as she stood.

“I am Judy, Princess of this land and I ask you why you have invaded this neutral ground.”

The man turned slowly toward her and smiled. “Now we are getting somewhere.” He motioned toward the two men holding Lianna. “Take that and the double to the cages. And I want you to take off your clothes and burn them. I also don’t want anyone going near either one. Is that clear?” The men nodded and hurried away.

“Why are you taking my sisters away?” Lucy did not flinch under his gaze.

“What are you girl?” he said almost to himself.

“I am a princess and it would behoove you to remember that. I asked you a question.” Lucy did not know where the words came from but somehow the reserve that kepter her so quiet most of the time was gone.

“Well you see little princess, your mother’s first husband had a dirty little secret, I would guess about his mother. And that renders it important that they be kept safe. They will not be unduly harmed.”

“Know this fiend; any harm to them will incur a blood debt far beyond your ability to pay.”

Her light blue eyes met his mismatched ones and they held each other for a long moment.

“After tonight there will be enough blood to go around,” said the man. “Come, we have wasted enough time.” He strode forward, took Lucy’s wrist in his powerful hand and motioned to his men. Thick ropes were brought out and laced around wrists and necks until the entire school was strung out across the courtyard in two long lines. The teachers and remaining guards were tied hand and foot and carried into the teacher’s hall.

“What will happen to them?” Lucy asked.

“They will be left for your families to find.”

He stepped forward dragging her along behind him. Her foot hit a root in the dark and pain shot through her knee so intensely that she could not breathe for a moment. He turned in annoyance.

“What is it?”

“My knee,” Lucy gasped when she could speak. There was no point hiding what he would find out as soon as they began moving.

He made a grunt of annoyance and lifted he petty coat. She noticed that he placed his body between her and his men. Once her leg was exposed the ugly metal brace which had entombed her fragile leg since childhood and had followed her every step like an unwanted dog eager for a master.

He met her eyes again. “A cripple?” and recovered her leg.

She met his eyes. “To family, yes. To marriageable men I am whole and unblemished.”

“And how pray tell did a princess lose use of her knee.”

“Doubtless you know of the Arnes Caren sickness.”

He nodded but showed no sign that he knew, as everyone did, that Arnes Caren was the Opus Magnus of the dark magicians of his country. That it had been unleashed on a small outpost of Mixupland soldiers and had quickly gotten out of hand infecting more than half of the population in a one hundred mile radius. It would have spread further had not the Toram, a secret brotherhood dedicated to the study and cure of disease quarantined the area.

“I was five years old,” Said Lucy, reverting to the truth. “Do you even understand the atrocities your country has committed?”

He did not answer her but straightened up, seeing that his men had finished with the prisoners. “We move out now.” He looked back at Lucy. “Can you ride, your highness?”

She nodded stone-faced.

He took the bridle of a large black horse which had just appeared behind him. He lifted Lucy easily onto the horse and led them forward. The men had been waiting for such a sign and began to prod the lines of prisoners into motion. She caught sight of Lianna, Elwin and Jon looking no worse than before in cages on a cart. She searched desperately with her eyes for Kurt or Anna but could see neither. She did find and hold Cassandaline’s eyes for a long moment before she was prodded onward by spear butts.

The procession set off at a surprisingly fast pace with Lucy at their head. A jolt of pain snaked its way up her leg with every motion of the horse.